Slow broadband wipes 20% off house prices

With growing numbers of people going online to perform tasks ranging from work
to grocery shopping and streaming entertainment, good broadband has become
critical. Homes without can lose 20 % of their value

Estate agents said broadband speed is so vital that buyers are walking away from a purchase if they discover that superfast speeds are not available in that areaPhoto: Ian Dagnall/ Alamy

By Keith Perry

4:51PM GMT 02 Mar 2014

Slow broadband speeds can wipe as much as 20 per cent off the value of properties and lack of superfast connectivity in an area can be a dealbreaker in house sales, property experts have said.

With growing numbers of people going online to perform tasks ranging from working to grocery shopping and streaming entertainment, good broadband has become critical.

Property search website Rightmove has now added a broadband speed checker to every one of its listings alongside factors such as quality of local schools and transport links.

Estate agents said broadband speed is so vital that buyers are walking away from a purchase if they discover that superfast speeds are not available in that area.

Rightmove said research it conducted among among 3,000 people found that broadband details were ranked as a more important feature when searching for property than information on transport links and nearby schools.

The new broadband speed information on listings is currently attracting over 400,000 page views a month. More than a third of all Rightmove traffic and around a quarter of email leads now come from home movers using smartphones and tablets, the company said.

On each property a user can link through to a page where a speedometer-style display shows the average speed in Mbps, and lets people know if they can upgrade to superfast broadband and the providers who offer the service in their area.

Bernard Phillips, Head of Consumer Platforms at Rightmove, said: “We already offer a number of tools to help consumers make informed decisions about a property including local schools and transport links, and we’re pleased to be the first to add data on broadband, something that has become ingrained in people’s lives and an important factor when choosing a home.”

Many homes especially those in rural and remote locations are blighted by slow broadband speeds of 2Mbps (megabits per second) or less which can make sending emails or using the internet painfully slow.

The Government’s rollout of the superfast network to reach 95 per cent of the UK promising speeds of up to 30Mbps has been delayed until 2017, with the latest figures from the communications regulator Ofcom, showing that these broadband speeds are unavailable to a quarter of the country.

Broadband speed is now regarded as the “fourth utility” after gas, water and electricity, said BBC property expert Henry Pryor.

He called on the Government to continue its rollout to ensure remaining rural parts of Britain were provided with broadband “to keep the countryside alive”.

“I was involved with a survey that looked at the impact of broadband speed on people looking to buy or rent and the potential impact on prices and we found a home without at least a standard broadband connection could be worth up to 20 per cent less than a comparable property,” Mr Pryor said.

“Broadband in my view is effectively the fourth utility as so much of life now requires decent broadband connection especially when you look at how much we deal with things online such as banking or controlling your appliances when you are away.

“A property needs 21st century connectivity. More people are making decisions to work from home fulltime or even part of the time. More demanding buyers now want fibre-optic superfast speeds for things like streaming entertainment and managing a host of equipment that relies on this.”

Gillian Guy, chief executive of Citizens Advice which has seen a 27 per cent rise in the number of people seeking help over broadband and internet issues since April last year said: “A poor internet service can shut people out of contributing to the national economy and people living in rural areas can find unreliable internet a particular struggle.”

This article has been updated to included the latest figures from Ofcom.